This invention relates to a page layout for search results that is adaptive to attributes of a display area on a graphical user interface (GUI). More particularly, an improved web-browser application that converts search results into block-level elements that are populated into content panes established by an adaptive page layout is provided.
Presently, the Internet provides a vast variety of utilities that assist Internet searching for information. Typically, this information is delivered from a search engine to a web browser located on a user's computing device in subsets that include a standard number of search results therein. For instance, upon submitting a search request, the search engine may return a subset of twenty results, which are presented on a display device with little or no processing by the web browser.
Because these results are not processed at the web browser (e.g., formatted according to the particular display device being utilized by the user), only a small portion of results are initially presented while the balance is clipped from view, thereby requiring a user to scroll to scan all results returned in the subset. In addition, the results are usually listed along one side of a web browser window potentially leaving a large area of the window unused. Accordingly, this inability to provide a scaled view of the search results according to a window size and the inability to take advantage of an entire window area provides the user with an undifferentiated flow of data that is inconvenient to navigate. Further, this inability to perform search-result processing within the web browser limits the functions offered by the web browser that could assist a user in recognizing relevant results and in narrowing the relevant results to a useful form.